Comparative Education Bulletin - Faculty of Education - The ...

Andrey Uroda invokes comparative research methodology to ask
what makes universities in China and Russia engage in partnerships
across the border. His case studies are drawn from higher education
institutions in Harbin in China and Vladivostok in Russia. The
institutions studied, he reports, met the challenges of establishing
cross-border dual Bachelors degree programs for Chinese students
completing their course of study in the two countries. He argues that
it is the market which drives universities to pursue such innovations,
suggesting that such border-crossing initiatives change commonly held
perceptions of what international higher education is all about.
Mitsuko Maeda considers a perennially difficult question in
comparative education research methodology, and particularly when
deployed in ethnographic research, of the duality of positions indicated
by “the researcher as insider and outsider”. She draws on her experience
of embodying simultaneously two identities – that of field worker in the
site being studied, and that of researcher conducting the investigation
– to highlight the advantages and problems that face a researcher in
such a position. Advantages she mentions include easier access to data,
and potentially more sophisticated levels of interpretation of the data,
given her in-depth knowledge of and familiarity with the local culture.
A contrasting disadvantage she highlights lies in the possibility that
researchers as insiders might not easily perceive familiar arrangements
and practices from objective viewpoints, while outside researchers
might have an advantage owing to their lack of familiarity with the
context that cautions them against taking anything for granted.
Ip Kin-yuen concludes this issue of the Comparative Education
Bulletin with an interview with Mark Bray, former President of the
Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong, former Editor of the
Bulletin, and former Dean and Professor of Comparative Education in
the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong, who recently
took up a position as Director of UNESCO’s International Institute for
Educational Planning (IIEP) in Paris, France. In this interview, Mark
Bray considers his early years working and gaining experience around
the world before settling in Hong Kong, his accepting an academic
position at the University of Hong Kong that reflected his interests in
comparative education and in international educational development,
the IIEP and the role it plays in helping United Nations member
countries work towards UNESCO’s goals in Education For All, and the
relationship between Hong Kong and UNESCO.
This is the ninth issue of the Comparative Education Bulletin, and
probably one of the strongest to date. If it has accomplished its mission
of showcasing the many faces and functions of comparative education
research in Asia, then the Comparative Education Society of Hong
Kong can be proud of its contribution to scholarship in the field.
4